I myself do not see this tech coming anytime soon to the battlefield. The conditions of battle and terrain IMO takes a crew to keep a tank running. Crews do lots of maintenance on their vehicles even to this day. I don't see a robot crew member that jumps out of the tank and do this kind of work being made anytime soon

Just a funny after thought here. I was let in on the development of one of the first RPV which was being developed at RPI. It was pretty much a failure because the engineering students didn't realize it actually had to be built rather light to get off of the ground ! They used very high density heavy foam and other heavy construction materials in the plane.

Elements of it already are in use. It's more a matter of an armed remotely "crewed" armored vehicle being "high on the why" then a lack of mechanical or practical ability.

The maintenance issue is one you handle by treating the tracked drone like a winged one. It gets daily maintenance away from the loud noises (Kind of like when the squishy crew does it's greasy stuff).

The reasons given by LSID for the slow implementation are more valid. Jam free data connections are more of a limiting factor.

Elements of it already are in use. It's more a matter of an armed remotely "crewed" armored vehicle being "high on the why" then a lack of mechanical or practical ability.

The maintenance issue is one you handle by treating the tracked drone like a winged one. It gets daily maintenance away from the loud noises (Kind of like when the squishy crew does it's greasy stuff).

The reasons given by LSID for the slow implementation are more valid. Jam free data connections are more of a limiting factor.

Hay, got any links I would really like to see it ! Jam free connections are on all the drones so I don't see that as a limiting factor.

I really don't believe one can treat tracked vehicles like a winged drone myself by just regular maintenance. Especially on the battlefield. That is why crews are trained to replace thrown tracks. Or say you get a bogie damaged by arty ?

Yes, one could certainly operate a tank remotely especially now but as I said I believe the daily maintenance in a combat environment would make this pretty impractical.

and say you wedge your remote tank into a shell hole or building remotely and far from a maintenance base.

Hay, got any links I would really like to see it ! Jam free connections are on all the drones so I don't see that as a limiting factor.

I really don't believe one can treat tracked vehicles like a winged drone myself by just regular maintenance. Especially on the battlefield. That is why crews are trained to replace thrown tracks.

Basic radio bud, as long as you're using RF to carry the data, there is no such thing as "Jam Free". A simple and powerful Marconi spark gap transmitter can do a hell of a job on most modern transmissions, just like an electrical storm can jack with them.

All you can do is configure the data transfer to minimize the loss, possibly incorporating a small amount of autonomous capability to keep it from merrily seeking the nearest mudhole or large tree if the connection is lost for too long a period..

And yes, you can treat armored vehicles like remotely piloted aircraft regarding maintenance. It's a matter of logistics rather than technology.

If one goes down in field, it's tagged for recovery when possible or destroyed if that's not an option. You don't "fix" drones midflight, nor would you be remounting a track under fire. When crew protection is a non-issue, you can afford to make the vehicle smaller and a bit more disposable.

Basic radio bud, as long as you're using RF to carry the data, there is no such thing as "Jam Free". A simple and powerful Marconi spark gap transmitter can do a hell of a job on most modern transmissions, just like an electrical storm can jack with them.

All you can do is configure the data transfer to minimize the loss, possibly incorporating a small amount of autonomous capability to keep it from merrily seeking the nearest mudhole or large tree if the connection is lost for too long a period..

And yes, you can treat armored vehicles like remotely piloted aircraft regarding maintenance. It's a matter of logistics rather than technology.

If one goes down in field, it's tagged for recovery when possible or destroyed if that's not an option. You don't "fix" drones midflight, nor would you be remounting a track under fire. When crew protection is a non-issue, you can afford to make the vehicle smaller and a bit more disposable.

Jam free connections are pretty standard on RPV's. Have been for a long time. You home DSSL phone is a example of one. It frequency hops. Marconi radio is Am, subject to a ton in interference and is never used in any secure communications.

these new secure communications are FM/FJ data links not you old analog am signals.

Again, FM is not immune (Turn on a FM radio during a lightning storm and note the pops/sizzles), and you're merely reducing the effect of RFI via how the network handles the datastream. Sometimes it does it well, sometimes it does it poorly.

Again, FM is not immune (Turn on a FM radio during a lightning storm and note the pops/sizzles), and you're merely reducing the effect of RFI via how the network handles the datastream. Sometimes it does it well, sometimes it does it poorly.

a lot of this tech is pretty standard now. Of course consumer equipment is the low end of the scale. Cordless phones have it and also RC transmitters and receivers.Both suffered from random interference before it was used.

Which is not "proof" against RFI, just a means of circumventing directed/freq spec. active jamming. It still is going to be affected by broader EM/RFI interference.

stalkervision, on Aug 19 2015 - 06:57, said:

a lot of this tech is pretty standard now. Of course consumer equipment is the low end of the scale. Cordless phones have it and also RC transmitters and receivers.Both suffered from random interference before it was used.

Again, you're trying to make distinctions regarding applications while not grasping that you cannot be free from RFI when you are using RF as the means of signal/data transfer. All you can do is minimize it's effects.

Which is not "proof" against RFI, just a means of circumventing directed/freq spec. active jamming. It still is going to be affected by broader EM/RFI interference.

Again, you're trying to make distinctions regarding applications while not grasping that you cannot be free from RFI when you are using RF as the means of signal/data transfer. All you can do is minimize it's effects.

No RF signal is immune from RFI.

Oh it might affect the signal a very tiny bit but really not enough to matter. That is what you are not grasping.

The evidence is in the drones you see bombing our enemies every day. Don't you think the Soviet Union or IRAN would have sent all their terrorist friends drone signal jamming equipment by now if it was so easy to do ?

Hell they have even shot down drones and given the workings to these two countries and the terrorists and our enemies still can't jam the signals!

Oh it might affect the signal a very tiny bit but really not enough to matter. That is what you are not grasping.

Again, there is no RF signal that is not affected/jammed by RFI. As I stated earlier, all you can do is minimize it's effects via how the signal is packaged.

stalkervision, on Aug 19 2015 - 07:10, said:

The evidence is in the drones you see bombing our enemies every day. Don't you think the Soviet Union or IRAN would have sent all their terrorist friends drone signal jamming equipment by now if it was so easy to do ?

Now you're off on a side tangent. Active full spectrum RF jamming works both ways. If you fire up a very powerful spectrum-flooding RF noise generator, it will disrupt your RF as well as the enemy signals. To swat a drone you're likely working with directed interference/jamming which is outside of my root statement.

I don't really care how "teh baddies" are disrupting datastreams to "our" drones, but to claim it's impossible is pretty damned silly for someone who claims to be in the know.